mundane

adj. of this world, earthly; normal, banal, ordinary

This page is about science fiction insider terminology. See Journal of Mundane Behavior for the scholarly journal. See Wiktionary for the adjective . In science fiction and in fandom, a mundane is a person who does not belong to a particular group, according to the members of that group. Some examples:In science fiction fandom, some fans classify all non-fans as "mundanes".In historical reenactment fandom, too, such as in The Society for Creative Anachronism, some fans classify all non-fans as "mundanes". Similarly, one's "mundane" name is the legal name they go by in the outside world. "Mundanes," sometimes shortened to just "danes" (not to be confused with people of Danish descent), is also a term for normal everyday clothes, as opposed to historical garb.In the science fiction television series Babylon 5, telepathic humans (especially Psi Corps members) classify all non-telepathic humans as "mundanes". The classification is employed mainly, but not solely, by telepathic characters who have telepath-supremacist ideologies (such ideologies being one of the issues dealt with by the series), and was deliberately chosen to mirror the classification in science fiction fandom.In fantasy literature the term is often used, or some equivalent, to apply to non-magical people or the non-magical society. It is used in Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, and Bill Willingham's comic book series Fables. The Harry Potter series uses the term muggle in the same way.In the Furry Fandom, it is used to describe non-furries, or "humans".
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Adjective
1. found in the ordinary course of events; "a placid everyday scene"; "it was a routine day"; "there's nothing quite like a real...train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute"- Anita Diamant
(synonym) everyday, quotidian, routine, unremarkable, workaday
(similar) ordinary
2. concerned with the world or worldly matters; "mundane affairs"; "he developed an immense terrestrial practicality"
(synonym) terrestrial
(similar) worldly
3. belonging to this earth or world; not ideal or heavenly; "not a fairy palace; yet a mundane wonder of unimagined kind"; "so terrene a being as himself"
(synonym) terrene
(similar) earthly

(a.)
Of or pertaining to the world; worldly; earthly; terrestrial; as, the mundane sphere.
  

<jargon> Someone outside some group that is implicit from the context, such as the computer industry or science fiction fandom. The implication is that those in the group are special and those outside are just ordinary.
(2000-07-22)